Haul

by Alex Nichols

Interstate 70 was lousy with ghosts. It had been for a while. In fact, on one recent haul, Nathan didn’t see a single living truck driver except himself. Every time he glanced over into another cab, there was nothing there. Just another ghost, invisibly shifting gears, changing lanes, lugging cargo. It creeped him out every time.

Of course, Nathan knew these ghosts were actually just robots — not that this made it any less creepy to see an unmanned 80,000 pound vehicle barrel down the highway at seventy miles per hour. Hell, he reckoned, robots might be even creepier than ghosts. He’d seen a movie or two. He knew robots had a tendency to become self-aware, go rogue, kill all humans, etc. If one of those trucks turned Terminator, they’d probably smell Nathan’s meaty body and mow him over with terrifying ease.

These robots never went rogue, though. They did exactly what they had been programmed to do. Which was almost worse, because what they’d been programmed to do was the exact same job Nathan had been doing for the last thirty years, only better. Unlike Nathan, robots didn’t need to eat or sleep or piss or shit or jerk off when they got lonely. Most importantly, they didn’t need money. They weren’t even aware of the concept, which made him a little jealous if he thought about it.